Talk:List of philosophical pessimists

On the difference between a category and a list

There are two somewhat similar item on Wikipedia that list philosophers of pessimism. Some clarification on the differences:

List of philosophical pessimists is a normal page that may contain text with paragraphs, descriptions, references, tables, and other things you would normally see on a Wikipedia page. This is good if we want to provide more complex description of categorization of philosophers. In particular, it allows us to create a table with information that we can sort on.

Category:Philosophers of pessimism is a special page in that it is being dynamically created by Wikipedia, whenever a special [[Category:Philosophers of pessimism]] line is added at the bottom of a page of a given philosopher (see, for example, the bottom of the page David Benatar). This helps Wikipedia track connections between themes.

(Ping @Alice793:) Fantastiera (talk) 18:59, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I understand.

I also think that the category page is helpful in order to coalesce together various different authors among disparate pages; however, when it comes to the philosophical pessmism page, this list of philosophical pessimists should be preferred as it contains sources/references and is, in general, much more organized/aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

What do you think?

Alice793 (talk) 03:10, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

On references

We don't need to reference all the books or translations any of these philosophers have written. We should prefer English translations, since this is an English-language page. If there is no such translation, then the original-language version should be preferred. There is no need to list translations of a book to additional language. Pages devoted to particular philosophers could maybe list them. But this page has a very specific and limited scope: to list pessimistic philosophers by providing very basic information and links to their pages.

(Ping @Alice793:) Fantastiera (talk) 18:59, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I see!

I agree with you -- we could perhaps list the Spanish translation on Horstmann's own Wikipedia page and keep this one page on the list of philosophical pessimists, when it comes to references, solely dedicated to official English translations of original versions of their works; and when no such English translations are available, the original language version in which the book was originally written should suffice.

Alice793 (talk) 03:06, 3 November 2024 (UTC)